TEXT: Psalm 85

We need an awakening in this generation. You would have to be locked in a basement without any communication, stranded on a deserted island, or just be willingly ignorant not to see that truth. Study the situation in our churches and our homes and our nation. We need a revival that goes deeper than the church bulletin and lasts longer than a series of meetings!

In Psalm 85, we can find a clear outline of a spiritual awakening. The Psalmist is crying out to God to move again. God had blessed before, but he desired for God to do it again! There are three main attributes of a genuine awakening that I want us to see in the text.

1. The Reflecting -v1-3 “Lord, thou hast…”

Three different times the writer uses the phrase, “thou hast.” He is looking back. He is looking back at the goodness of God and the blessings of God. He is looking back to a time when God was real to his nation. Before revival comes, there must be a desire for God to do for us what God has done for others. A desire for God to bless again is an attribute of awakening.

2. The Repenting -v4 “Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease.”

There has never been and will never be an awakening without a turning. I fear we want a cheapened version of revival today that requires no change but receives the same blessing. That simply will not happen! An attribute of awakening is a people who’ll cry sincerely, “Turn us!”

3. The Requesting -v5-13 “Wilt thou…”

The Psalmist has reflected and touched upon repentance, now he goes to God and asks him for what he needs. He prays for revival! I am convinced that it will take a praying people to produce an awakening. We have not because we ask not. I wonder how long it’s been since a church has honestly requested genuine revival?

ILLUSTRATION: In 1746, Jonathan Edwards published a book on “concerts of prayer” The preacher was convinced that if the awakening they were experiencing were going to continue, it would be kept alive by prayer. The book was a call to God’s people to fall upon their faces and to enter into their closets, bombarding the throne of grace with pleas for continued revival. The call to prayer reached both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, and Christians responded accordingly.

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